BILOXI, Miss. -- The attorney for Nick Tran claims that race is a factor in the federal case against the Biloxi pharmacist.

WLOX-TV
in Biloxi reports that attorney David Morrison says in new federal
court documents that Tran is innocent and is being prosecuted because
he is Vietnamese. The brief also suggests the government showed an
"unlawful bias" by leaking to the news media the raid on Tran's
pharmacy and an adjoining medical clinic.

Nick Tran is accused of
filling illegal prescriptions allegedly written by a husband-and-wife
doctor team who operated a clinic next door to his business. The
doctors have pleaded guilty in the case.

Nick Tran is the last of
the defendants in the case. His trial was supposed to begin in late
October, but was delayed when his lawyers were not prepared.

In
the court filing Thursday, Morrison says another pharmacist, who is
white, was filling similar prescriptions alongside Nick Tran, but was
not charged.

Tran's lawyer also argues that other pharmacies in
the area had filled narcotics prescriptions written by the doctors
without any prosecution.